


Painted With Blood

by Hakkari



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Crime Scenes, Crimes & Criminals, Gen, Murder Mystery, lots of blood and guts, seriously they're a homicide detective and a forensic scientist, there will be lots of bodies and stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:26:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hakkari/pseuds/Hakkari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane Crocker is a homicide detective in a city where murders happen everyday. Usually they're easy to figure out, what with humans and trolls living together in close quarters and hate crimes an everyday event. Then she's thrown a case where bodies are brutally mutilated and pieces are stolen right off the crime scene. With no suspect and the number of deaths rising, Jane is losing hope as to whether they'll ever find the person (or troll) behind it.</p>
<p>Enter Aradia Megido, archaeological forensic scientist. Transferred out of her old department for 'reasons known only to her former employers', Aradia becomes Jane's assistant. She's smart, funny, and has a love of adventure and mystery that rivals Jane's own. Yet for some reason she's hiding something, something that ties her very close to the case and to the culprit's heart. </p>
<p>With the murderer becoming more desperate, time is running out fast for the newly put together team. And when a target is locked on some of their closest friends and relatives, the situation grows even more dire. Can they find the killer in time, without losing those closest to them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Painted With Blood

**Author's Note:**

> There can never be enough detective AUs, nope. I refuse to believe that it's a thing that can exist.
> 
> Anyway, there are going to be lots of gross bodies and blood and stuff because the premise is based around murders and the investigation of said-murders. I tried to use as many facts as I could, but it's entirely possible I misread something or something is inaccurate and if you want to correct me that's perfectly fine!
> 
> I actually saw this picture on tumblr and figured that Jane and Aradia would actually the coolest investigation team ever. Obviously, while the picture is shipping them romantically, I figure they'd be more platonic friends than anything.  
> http://homestuck-rarepairs.tumblr.com/post/45901500462/detective-jane-crocker-falls-for-cuties-in-lab

Jane thought that after two years of being a homicide detective, the shock of a crime scene would wear off. Usually she had very little reaction, but those bodies were always intact. This one, along with several others she had recently been investigating, wasn't. 

She hadn't initially been called, with the thought that it was just another murder (they were so common in the area it was a waste to drag out a detective already on a case), but then the first forensic workers on the scene had found something... _troubling_.

The body was half-buried under rubble, only the torso sticking from above rock and wood. The victim was human, which wasn't exactly unusual. The outskirts of the city had always had issues with crime, especially in the area of human-troll relations. If it had been under any other circumstances, Jane would have contacted any trolls the victim was found to have interacted with and interrogated them.

However, again, there were a lot of issues this time around. 

For one, the style of death and body mutilation fit her current case perfectly. She had her doubts that it was a troll committing all of the murders.

For another, the security system hadn't gone off. And considering that he had probably paid an arm and a leg for it (Jane allowed herself a chuckle at the morbid pun), it didn't make sense. Unless his killer was human, of course. Not that anyone wanted to acknowledge the fact that humans could be just as bad as trolls, but she wasn't convinced.

She knelt down next to the body, glancing to the left and noticing the knife that the initial investigation team had found. There were no fingerprints, obviously, but the blood on the blade matched the victim's. There had been a struggle, considering the state of the dining room in which the body was located. It had to have made enough noise to alert the neighbor, who had called after hearing crashes. Of course, that meant-

"Hi!" A troll grinned down at her. She looked almost psychotic, red-lined eyes wide and her grin even wider. The detective grimaced, rising to her knees. 

"Hello. Not to be rude, but is there a reason you're bothering me in the middle of an important investigation?" The troll didn't stop smiling, fumbling inside of her lab coat for something. She produced a small stack of paperwork, which she promptly handed over to Jane. Then she stood straight up - she was much taller than Jane but that was no longer a surprise with trolls - and put her hands behind her back.

"My name is Aradia Megido, forensic archaeologist. Considering the happenings of your current case, I was assigned to work with you." She nodded at the half-buried body in front of them. 

"What happened to my other assistant?" 

"His wife just had a child, ma'am. So he's on... maternity leave? Is that right? You humans are really fascinating, I mean how does a wriggler even _grow_ in there? I mean, I obviously know the facts, but it's just really amazing and you all don't even seem _phased_ by it!" Her voice was getting louder the more excited she seemed to be getting. Jane sighed.

"I've never seen you around before, Megido."

"Oh! Megido's what people call my genetic twin and ancestor. Aradia's perfectly fine." She tapped her lip, which Jane realized was just as red as her eye liner. "Well, to answer your question, I was transferred here about three days ago. They told me that my talents were better suited here." She nodded.

Usually being transferred because someone's 'talents were better suited somewhere else' meant that something had gone wrong. Jane only nodded back at her before turning back to the body. "So, tell me about yourself, Aradia."

"Hm? Oh, well, I'm a rust-blood. I love archaeology and I used to actually work on digs before I decided to come into forensics. My favorite movie character of all time is Troll Indiana Jones, and if you need a character reference you should speak to my moirail Sollux Captor. He's put up with me for about eight sweeps now, so he probably knows anything and everything about me." 

"Your ancestor anyone I've heard of?"

There was a long silence, and Jane actually had to glance up from the body to make sure that Aradia was still behind her. The troll was biting her lip, but then shrugged once she noticed that the detective was looking at her. "I doubt it. You only really hear about the highbloods, anyway."

"Fair enough." 

Aradia crouched down next to her, pulling gloves from her coat before reaching for the body. "So, stab wounds?"

Jane nodded. "Something like that. At least, we think so. There's a problem, though."

"Seems pretty clear to me, actually. Someone stabbed him, and another person heard the culprit while they were trying to hide the body. Obviously they didn't get to finish burying him." The troll waved her hands over the scene with a satisfied nod.

"Interesting deduction. It's one we came to ourselves, actually. As you said, we thought it would be pretty open-and-shut, but then our first forensics experts discovered something rather important." Jane motioned towards where the lower torso would be buried. "There was no bottom half."

"Excuse me?"

"Yes, you heard me correctly Ms. Aradia. The lower half of the body was completely torn away from the top, and we haven't been able to locate it yet. You'd think in a city full of trolls we'd be able to find a simple lower half. Not that I meant anything bad by the troll thing, you simply have better senses than we do." 

"Have any of the former victims of this killer been found like this?" Jane shook her head.

"No, not damaged to this extent. Sometimes the bodies would be missing arms, maybe a leg. Never everything past the torso, though. I'd say they were desperate to get something and were careless, but our victim here isn't connected to anything worth losing the entire lower body for. He's low-middle class, human, no wife, no kids, no strange business transactions, no tax evasion, nothing." She tapped her glasses.

Aradia frowned. "So it was indiscriminate, then. Is anyone taking legal action, by chance?"

"Yes. As far as I'm aware, his family's suing the company that created his security system. It failed to go off or emit the noises it was supposed to. I believe that Pyrope is actually heading that case, so it should be interesting to watch."

"Wait, Terezi is?" 

"You know her?"

"Yeah, she was an old... friend. Rival, I guess would be better. We used to FLARP together." She waved it away. "Anyway, what noises were supposed to be emitted."

At this Jane looked awkwardly at her. "Well... you know what I said about trolls having heightened senses? It was basically supposed to be like a dog whistle, I suppose. Except it was for trolls."

"Wait, this system can recognize whether it's a troll or human that walks in?"

"Er, no. Actually, it was just made for trolls. Apparently humans can't actually be criminals now. Only you Alternians can commit heinous deeds, hoo hoo." 

Aradia sighed. Ever since troll and human society had merged, there had been a heavy stigma against her species. Not only were they strange looking, they almost perfectly matched the images of the human demon. With their sharp horns, teeth, and claws, every troll was looked at as a dangerous predator. Add in the fact that the purple bloods had been the first to emerge and you had disaster waiting to happen.

Of course the humans had won the small battles that had broken out - they outnumbered the trolls four to one - but they had been 'generous'. Trolls were allowed to keep their leader as long as the random cullings stopped. They also encouraged the retirement of the old Condescension, though she was still in charge until her heiress was 'of age' (whatever that meant, since Feferi was already twelve sweeps old and pretty much fully matured, just not fully grown height-wise). The Mother Grub and the breeding drones were allowed to continue as previous, though the drones weren't allowed to cull trolls (and humans, by extension) that failed to provide genetic material. At least, in human cities. Troll cities still followed the old ways.

Also, trolls were allowed to work alongside humans. However, if they were seen as a threat they would be investigated immediately. 

It wasn't exactly a fair system, but Aradia couldn't complain. As the lowest on the hemospectrum, most looked at her without as much suspicion as the highbloods. Her employers often hesitated, not really believing that she had as much experience as she actually did. But she always got the job, even without showing off the use of her powers.

"So you're saying that the murderer is human?" She gently brushed her fingers over the stab entry point, frowning. "It seems kind of... brutal. For a human, I mean. Ripping off body parts and hiding them isn't exactly unusual for trolls, really."

Jane nodded. "Exactly. While I'm not saying that the perpetrator is definitely human, there's something a bit too... planned out about this. Every murder I've dealt with involving trolls has been a bit messier. There are usually claw marks, especially around the areas where limbs are torn away." She pointed at the torso. "It seems too clean."

"It could be a troll that didn't want to leave any traces behind. Besides, the preliminary file stated that the neighbor called within ten minutes of the murder. The police arrived six minutes after the call was made. What human would be strong enough to rip off everything from the hip down in that amount of time?" 

"I could say the same about trolls, Aradia." 

She sighed, bringing up her fingers. "Well, a fully matured purple blood could do this easily in two minutes, a particularly strong indigo could possibly do it in less... Hell, I could probably do it if you gave me a few minutes! Especially with my- Well, some trolls have the ability to lift things with their psiiconics. Who's to say that the criminal didn't have those?"

Jane hesitated, then stood up, brushing off her pants. "Well, I can't say I truly considered that point. Anyway, it doesn't matter right now. We need to find the rest of the body, and that's where you come in, I believe."

Aradia frowned. "I doubt it would be anywhere around here. The soil is hard clay, which gets super tricky to dig through after about a foot. Add in the gravel, and that's just adding a lot of extra time that the culprit didn't have. If they're burying the bodies at all, it would have to be somewhere far from here." 

The detective nodded. "Right, so we have our first objective. We need to find out where the culprit could have possibly buried the parts." She snapped at one of the other investigators, who jumped to attention. "I'm going to need a geological map depicting the types of soil in and around the city. Search in a fifty mile radius outside." 

"Yes ma'am."

She turned back to Aradia as the human scampered off. "You have a chumHandle?"

"Actually, I use Trollian, but it should work, right? It's apocalypseArisen."

"Right. Well, if you get a message from gutsyGumshoe, it's me." She nodded. "I suspect we'll be seeing each other soon, then?"

Aradia smiled. "Hopefully with more information and under better circumstances."


End file.
